Mr. Abe’s hawkish views have come under scrutiny as he returns to power at a time when Japan is caught in bitter territorial disputes with China and South Korea. JRT has reviewed some of his books, magazine essays, media interviews, and reports on his speeches over the past decade. Some samples:

*On the territorial dispute with China:

“There is no room for diplomatic negotiations over this issue. What is required in the waters around the Senkakus is not negotiations but — if I may say at the risk of being misunderstood – physical force.”

–essay in Bungei Shunju magazine, December, 2012

*On Japan’s apologies to Asian neighbors for World War II:

“If the LDP returns to power again, we will have to rebuild our East Asian diplomacy. Being excessively considerate to neighboring nations . . . has not brought us real friendship.”

–interview with Sankei Shimbun, Aug. 28, 2012

*On comfort women, or forced sex slavery by the Japanese military:

“As for the coercion (of sex slavery upon Asian women), there has always been a controversy… It is a fact that there is nothing to support there was coercion. There is no evidence.”

–speaking to reporters, March 2007

*On Japanese designated war criminals from World War II:

“So-called Class-A war criminals were tried as war criminals at the Tokyo Trial (by the Allied Powers.) By domestic law, they are not war criminals.”

–parliamentary testimony, October 2006

*On the peace pledge in the preamble of the Japanese Constitution:

“We gave up a nation’s most important mission of protecting the safety of its own citizens on the strange assumption that the rest of the world is made up of peace-loving people… ”

–essay in Bungei Shunju magazine, December, 2012

*On the Article 9 “peace clause” of the constitution renouncing the rights to wage war and have a military:

“Article 9 of the Constitution failed to provide a necessary condition for an independent nation.”

“Above all, the U.S. stance toward Japan in those days is strongly reflected in the clause on the ‘Renunciation of War’ in Article 9 of the constitution. In order to protect national interests of its own and other Allied Powers, the U.S…drafted the constitution with a strong intention not to let Japan challenge the Western-centered world order again.”

–from his 2006 book, “Toward A Beautiful Country.”

*On nuclear weapons:

“The possession of nuclear bombs is constitutional, so long as they are small.”

–speech at Waseda University, May 2002, according to Sunday Mainichi magazine.

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